Precast Solutions - September/October 2008 - (Page 17) At the heart of the project is a 20-foot-wide by 11foot-tall precast box culvert that comprises 63 pieces of 4-foot box sections, each weighing 49,000 pounds. According to Gary Schmidgall, vice president and general manager at Hancock Concrete Products Inc. in Cannon Falls, Minn., the completed tunnel is 252 feet long and incorporates cast-in-place end treatments to accommodate the slope and angle of the freeway. The other end treatment, says Schmidgall, will include slightly flared precast wingwalls. As the first 20-foot-span box culvert to be installed under a federal highway in Minnesota, the pedestrian tunnel represents a significant precast project for the state. Accustomed to handling large road projects, Hancock Concrete came highly recommended by the project’s designer, which then worked with the precaster’s engineering team to design a suitable box culvert. Not long after it entered the early planning stages, the tunnel project was “nearly dead in the water,” according to Schmidgall. “The city of Minneapolis didn’t want to pick up any expenses for it, so the project was dead for a couple of weeks. Then one day we got a call from Flatiron, asking us how quickly we could get a 20by-11 box culvert done.” Workers place a 20-foot-wide by 11-foot-tall precast box culvert into place. Averaging 15 to 19 loads delivered per day to the project site, the precast supplier got all of the pieces on site for installation in six days. FAST TRACK Knowing that the project’s owner was on a tight time schedule, Hancock fast-tracked the project and promised it within a short six weeks from the signed order date. “We told them we’d have it ready to deliver by that time,” says Schmidgall. Getting the job done SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2008 | PRECAST SOLUTIONS 17
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